Houseparty offers $1m reward for proof of sabotage

With people stuck isolating at home, spending much more time online, the keyboard warriors are out in force. 

We are seeing conspiracy theory after theory, from people with nothing better to do....

The latest conspiracy try’s to trash the extremely popular “HouseParty” app which is allowing friends and family users to keep in touch by making free FaceTime conference calls on their phones 

The company behind the app has now offered a massive $1m bounty after it suspected foul play from a rival app producer being behind the current malicious rumours. 

The article below has appeared today in the nation press:

No evidence of Houseparty hacking - but people are still deleting the app

A couple of weeks ago, Houseparty was a relatively obscure video calling app - an also-ran alongside a host of other social media hopefuls. 

As the coronavirus outbreak has forced us all indoors, it has shot up app download charts, with millions signing up to take part in group chats and games.

Then, at the start of the week, rumours began emerging that the service had been hacked in a similar fashion to Uber, exposing users’ Spotify, Netflix and even bank accounts. 

In the last 48 hours, tweets and WhatsApp messages have been spreading rapidly urging people to delete the app.

Security experts say there is little substance to the rumours. There has been no evidence of a Houseparty breach, or of increased attacks on other apps either. Just another viral rumour. 

But then the company behind the Houseparty app cried conspiracy. 

The app producers have now offered a $1m bounty, alleging that the hacking claims were part of a “smear campaign” to discredit the app.

One can certainly believe there are companies out there that would like to see Houseparty fail. After all, if you’re on Houseparty, you’re not on Instagram, or Snapchat, or Zoom. 

But there seems to be about as much evidence of a purposeful campaign against the company than of it being hacked - very little.

Nonetheless, these rumours have a habit of becoming folk knowledge. Plenty of people believe Facebook is listening to your conversations, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Houseparty may not have been hacked, but people are still deleting it.

According to Apptopia downloads of the app rose from an average of 130,000 a week mid-February to 2m a week in the middle of March.

Online gaming firm Epic Games, which also makes Fortnite, purchased Houseparty from its creator in 2019.

Epic Games has not said why it believes Houseparty were the victim of a smear attack but promised to pay the first person to provide evidence of this.

How it all started

On Monday the company began fighting rumours on social media that the video chat app was the reason other apps were being hacked.

Several people posted on Twitter screenshots they claimed showed they were locked out of applications like Netflix, Spotify and even bank accounts after they downloaded Houseparty.

Those tweets were followed up by calls to delete Houseparty, and by claims that Epic Games was preventing users from removing Houseparty from their phones.

The company issued a statement denying those allegations.

"We've found no evidence to suggest a link between Houseparty and the compromises of other unrelated accounts," a spokesperson for Epic Games said.

"As a general rule, we suggest all users choose strong passwords when creating online accounts on any platform."

Source: Telegraph, BBC News